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OUR  FOREIGN  FIELDS 


MALAYSIA 


BOARD  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS  OF 
THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH 

NOVEMBER,  19H 


AT  THE  CORNER  OF  ASIA 

That  region  at  the  southeastern  edge  of  Asia 
which  is  loosely  called  Malaysia  comprises  a 
land  area  of  some  700,000  square  miles,  the 
equivalent  of  about  one  fifth  of  the  area  of  the 
United  States.  This  includes  Java,  an  island 
the  size  of  New  York  State,  and  Borneo,  which 
is  nearly  four  times  as  large  as  the  State  of 
Illinois.  On  these  islands  and  on  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  fifty  American  Methodists  are  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  missionaries  of  other  Boards  in 
the  task  of  making  Christ  known  in  a  territory 
whose  population  is  said  to  be  70,000,000. 

The  Malaysia  Conference  has  been  called  a 
“Polyglot  Mission,”  as  its  work  is  among  the 
people  of  many  nations  and  races.  On  the  staff 
of  one  of  its  institutions  there  are  found  Ameri¬ 
cans,  English,  Eurasians,  Tamils,  Malabars, 
Malays,  Foochow  Chinese,  Baba  Chinese  (Chi¬ 
nese  born  in  the  Straits  Settlements),  a  Cocos  Is¬ 
lander,  Amoy  Chinese,  a  native  of  Borneo,  and 
a  Sikh.  On  the  streets  of  Singapore  may  be 
heard  more  than  fifty  languages,  the  majority  of 
which  are  spoken  by  pupils  in  Methodist  schools. 
The  Methodist  Church  in  Malaysia  is  now  doing 
evangelistic  work  in  nine  languages — ^English, 
Tamil,  Malay,  Hokkien,  Foochow,  Hakka, 
Cantonese,  Hinghwa,  and  Tiu  Chiew. 

Many  forms  of  religious  belief  are  found  in 
Malaysia,  from  the  most  primitive  spirit-worship 
and  fetish-worship  to  the  complex  systems  of 
India  and  China.  There  are  said  to  be  35,000,- 
000  of  Mohammedans.  Methodism  is  securing 
converts  from  among  the  Chinese,  the  Hindus, 
and  the  Mohammedan  Malays,  at  the  same  time 
fulfilling  its  responsibility  toward  Europeans  for 
whom  there  are  preaching  services  in  the  Meth¬ 
odist  churches  of  four  of  the  most  important 
cities  on  or  near  the  Malay  Peninsula. 


SUCCESSFUL  EVANGELISM 

When  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  Meth¬ 
odist  mission  work  closed  in  1910  there  were 
3,120  members  and  probationers  in  the  Malay¬ 
sia  Conference,  the  mission  was  baptizing  275 
converts  in  a  single  year,  there  were  1 ,662  on 
the  rolls  of  the  forty-four  Sabbath  schools,  and 
there  were  twenty-five  church  and  chapel  build¬ 
ings  besides  fourteen  other  halls  or  places  of 
worship.  In  that  year  the  churches  on  the  field 
contributed  nearly  $12,000  for  all  phases  of  the 
work  of  the  denomination. 

Malaysia  has  become  a  Canaan  for  the 
poverty-stricken  people  of  Southern  China.  The 
colonists  from  Foochow  who  settled  in  Sarawak, 
British  Borneo,  in  1903,  have  in  eight  years 
reached  the  threshold  of  what  their  friends  in 
China  would  consider  wealth.  The  2,000  set¬ 
tlers  of  this  type  in  Borneo  have  been  reached  by 
Methodist  missionaries  with  such  success  that 
they  constitute  what  may  fairly  be  called  a  Chris¬ 
tian  community. 

Within  three  years  from  the  beginning  of 
Methodist  mission  work  in  Java  there  were  a 
score  of  baptized  converts  from  Mohammedan¬ 
ism,  two  of  them  in  the  Training  School  pre¬ 
paring  to  preach  the  gospel.  At  one  Sunday 
service  in  a  Malay  village,  nine  adult  Moham¬ 
medans  were  baptized.  The  city  of  Batavia, 
with  a  population  of  1 40,000,  has  30,000  Chi¬ 
nese.  Six  years  after  the  entrance  of  Methodist 
missionaries  there  were  three  regularly  consti¬ 
tuted  churches  among  the  Malay  and  Chinese 
people,  with  two  other  preaching  places  in  out¬ 
lying  sections.  In  addition  to  this,  there  were 
churches  and  schools  in  villages  twelve,  fifteen, 
and  eighteen  miles  from  Batavia,  these  village 
churches  being  made  up  of  Mala-ys. 


HIGH-GRADE  SCHOOL  WORK 

In  several  of  the  cities  of  the  Straits  Settle¬ 
ments  and  the  Federated  Malay  States  the 
Methodist  missionaries  are  conducting  large 
Anglo-Chinese  and  Anglo-Tamil  schools  for 
boys  and  girls.  The  Anglo-Chinese  Boys’ 
School  in  Singapore  is  the  largest  foreign  mission 
school  in  Methodism,  having  an  average  enroll¬ 
ment  of  1 , 1  62  with  40  teachers.  The  school  in 
Penang  has  1 ,032  on  its  rolls,  with  32  teachers. 
None  of  these  schools  draw  any  money  from  the 
regular  funds  of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions, 
being  supported  by  school  fees,  government 
grants,  and  special  gifts. 

In  1910  one  of  the  boys  in  the  Anglo- 
Chinese  School  at  Penang  won  great  distinction 
in  the  Cambridge  Local  Examinations,  passing 
with  first-class  honors  and  six  distinctions,  at  the 
same  time  taking  the  Pitman’s  Silver  Medal  for 
shorthand,  being  placed  first  in  all  the  list,  both 
in  the  British  Isles  and  the  Colonies,  and  being 
third  in  the  whole  junior  list. 

A  Chinese  educational  association  in  Java, 
which  supports  many  schools  for  the  study  of 
English  and  of  Mandarin  Chinese,  has  turned 
to  the  Methodist  missionaries  as  the  best  qualified 
to  supervise  and,  indeed,  to  conduct  their 
schools.  Early  in  1910  they  signed  a  contract 
with  the  Rev.  J.  R.  Denyes  by  which  he  agreed 
to  furnish  a  missionary  to  teach  English  in  the 
Batavia  school,  while  they  bore  the  entire 
financial  burden,  the  agreement  granting  the  mis¬ 
sionary  the  privilege  of  doing  distinctively  Chris¬ 
tian  work  outside  of  school  hours.  In  February, 
1 91  I ,  a  delegation  of  Chinese  traveled  from  Java 
to  Singapore  for  the  purpose  of  proposing  to  the 
Malaysia  Conference,  then  in  session,  that  the 
Methodist  missionaries  should  take  charge  of  a 
eentr.al  “middle  school”  to  be  located  at  Buiteo- 


zorg,  the  summer  capital  of  the  Dutch  Indies. 
The  Chinese  agreed  to  provide  the  building  and 
endowment  for  a  principalship.  One  of  our 
missionaries  who  is  supported  by  this  association, 
making  use  of  his  hours  of  freedom  from  school 
duties,  has  opened  five  outstations  and  has  had 
several  baptisms  in  the  territory  of  which  his 
school  is  the  center. 

In  May,  1908,  a  Christian  man  from  British 
India  was  sent  by  the  Malaysia  Mission  authori¬ 
ties  to  open  an  Anglo-Chinese  school  in  Palem- 
bang,  on  the  island  of  Sumatra.  The  school 
prospered  from  the  beginning,  and  in  less  than 
three  years  not  only  paid  its  way  but  cleared  a 
profit  which  was  put  aside  for  the  day  when  it 
should  be  possible  to  erect  a  school  building. 
From  the  day  and  night  classes  which  were 
begun  there  has  developed  in  addition  a  school 
for  Arabs  and  promising  evangelistic  work 

At  the  Jean  Hamilton  Training  School,  Sin¬ 
gapore,  there  were  in  training  for  the  ministry  in 
1910-11,  sixteen  students:  7  Chinese  (1  Foo¬ 
chow,  1  Cantonese,  2  Hakkas,  and  3  Hok- 
kiens),  and  9  Malays  (2  from  Java  and  7  from 
Battakland,  Sumatra). 


FOR  LACK  OF  FUNDS 

The  Malaysia  Conference  is  as  fully  manned 
as  it  can  be  with  the  financial  outlay  that  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  is  able  to  make  in 
that  one  of  its  many  great  and  needy  fields.  And 
yet  one  of  the  missionaries  is  pastor  of  a  church 
of  English-speaking  people,  joint  pastor  of  a 
Chinese  church  and  principal  of  an  Anglo-Chi¬ 
nese  school  where  over  500  students  are  taught 
by  19  teachers.  Another  is  superintendent  of 
a  district  in  which  there  is  work  for  English- 
speaking  people,  Tamils,  and  Chinese,  and  at 


the  same  time  supervises  32  teachers  in  the  run¬ 
ning  of  an  Anglo-Chinese  school  with  an  en¬ 
rollment  of  over  1 ,000 — a  school  whose  students 
have  taken  amazingly  high  rank  in  the  Cambridge 
Local  Examinations.  Another  missionary  is 
superintendent  of  a  district,  the  executive  head 
of  a  great  publishing  house,  and  editor  of  the 
Malaysia  Message. 

Early  in  1910  seven  rajahs  in  Battakland,  in 
Northern  Sumatra,  petitioned  the  Rev.  John  R. 
Denyes  to  arrange  for  opening  mission  work 
among  their  people.  The  messenger  whom  they 
sent  assured  him  that  within  two  years  a  mission¬ 
ary  with  a  few  native  workers  might  gather  a 
Christian  community  of  at  least  2,000  people. 
These  people,  who  were  heathen,  said  that  if 
the  missionaries  did  not  help  them  they  would 
send  for  the  Mohammedans.  But  no  missionary 
could  be  sent  unless  the  church  in  America  should 
provide  more  liberal  support  for  the  work. 

PROFITABLE  INVESTMENTS 

$30  to  $50  will  support  a  student  in  an  Anglo- 
Tamil  School  or  an  Anglo-Chinese  School 
or  in  the  Bible  Training  School  for  one 
year. 

$40  to  $60  will  maintain  a  native  teacher  for 
a  year. 

$50  to  $100  will  support  a  native  pastor  for 
a  year. 

$100  to  $300  will  build  a  native  school. 

$250  to  $500  will  build  a  native  church. 

$25  to  $  1 ,000  will  aid  in  establishing  medical 
work  in  Java. 

$25  to  $10,000  will  aid  in  establishing  the 
much  needed  Endowment  Fund  of  the 
Anglo-Chinese  College  at  Singapore. 
Send  the  money  to  the  Missionary  Secretaries, 
150  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City. 


